


Falling Sideways

by Evandar



Series: And The Stars Fell [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universes of the Alternate Universe, Author Takes a Swandive into Hell, Bill's Dad is a Dick, Canon-Typical Violence, Corporal Punishment, Dark Bill Denbrough, Don't copy to another site, Memory Alteration, Other, POV Outsider, Pennywise (IT) in Love, Possessive Pennywise (IT), Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Repressed Memories, Side Story, Weird fiction, short story collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2020-12-29 11:35:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: Side-stories, outtakes and AUs from the 'And the Stars Fell' universe.





	1. Monster-in-Law - Meet the Parents AU

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter was inspired by a [comment](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/254644832) by penni_saur, who wanted to see Bill's parents meet his new 'girlfriend.' So, this 'Meet the Parents' AU _doesn't_ happen in the main fic (I have different plans for Bill's dad), but is set between chapters 3 & 4.
> 
> Rating and warnings are a bit pre-emptive, but let's be real. You've read the main fic (presumably), you know the weird shit that happens here.

Snow is falling. Fat, white flakes drifting down from an eerie white sky. Bill sits and watches as the world disappears beneath it, blanketed over. He can hear the radio playing in the kitchen; hear his mother and Georgie singing along with a mix of Van Halen, INXS and Christmas songs. He can smell cinnamon, clove and ginger in the air – the rich scent of festive baking. It’s not for him. Bill is still grounded after Halloween, confined to his room when he’s not at school or at the dining table, and no doubt his father will forbid him any gingerbread when he gets home too. He’s still angry with him, and even his mother finds it difficult to look at him sometimes. He disappointed her, he knows, by sneaking out. He can see it in her thoughts. But she’s started to worry lately, about him and about his ‘girlfriend’ – the conversation he’d had with her about Pennywise is playing on her mind.

He rests his cheek on the cold glass and sighs, fogging it. Behind him, the draft of a new story sits by his typewriter. Writing is all he’s had to do here apart from homework – at least until night falls – and he thinks he’s starting to get pretty good at it. 

He watches as his father’s car pulls into the drive. He looks down at the top of his head as he steps out, hunching his shoulders against the snow and the wind. His father is in a good mood for once, and Bill draws back from the window in case catching a glimpse of him is enough to spoil it.

He shuts his eyes, listens to the door open and the singing stop. He breathes in the scent of gingerbread and wishes it was blood.

…

He wishes, later, that he’d never mentioned having a girlfriend to his mother. It was kind of a lie, made up on the spot to cover for the things her instincts had been telling her. Pennywise isn’t so much a girl as a divine being beyond such petty things as gender – at least, that’s what it’s told him – and the thing they have between them is much more serious than the word ‘girlfriend’ implies.

His mother thinks he’s depressed, trapped in the house as he is, which he isn’t so long as there’s distance between him and his father. She thinks he misses Pennywise, which he doesn’t. Not really. It’s hard to miss someone who shares your mindscape, and while he misses Pennywise’s physical form during the day, his <strike>lover</strike>(_mate_) has taken to visiting him every night. She thinks he’s going to start resenting his father, which isn’t right either. He _already_ resented him: being punched and kicked like he was when he arrived home on November first just made it worse. It is, after all, hard not to resent someone who disrespects you so utterly.

“Come on, Zach,” she’s saying. “It’s nearly Christmas.”

“And you think he deserves some kind of reward?” his father growls, good mood thoroughly gone.

“I do, yes,” she says. “It’s not like either of us were sensible when we were teenagers, either.”

Bill’s sure he’s not meant to know that she’s thinking of him when she says it: that she’s thinking of finding out she was pregnant at nineteen and marrying the sweet, charming guy who’d done the job. He stares down at his plate in mortification, avoiding Georgie’s curious look and his father’s furious glare. It’s news to both of them that he’s in some kind of romantic relationship, and while Georgie’s curiosity is an innocent thing, all he can feel from his father is anger and disbelief and _how’s this kid got a girlfriend when he won’t even be able to say her fucking name?_

Bill’s grip on his fork tightens as his father unknowingly strikes a nerve. He _can’t_ say Pennywise’s name. He knows its true name, and the knowledge sits sharp and jagged in his brain, but there’s no way he could ever pronounce it even if he didn’t have a stutter. It’s not a name designed for human tongues. As it is, he struggles saying “Pennywise” most of the time – p’s and w’s both make his tongue trip – but Pennywise has never seemed to care. It just pays attention, no matter how long it takes Bill to stumble over something.

It’s just as well Pennywise has plans for his father. He’s not sure he’d be able to take another five years living with his bullshit and derision.

“Sure,” his father says finally. “Whatever. Invite the kid around.”

Bill’s mother tosses her hair back and nods. “I will,” she says. She offers Bill a small smile, hopeful that this will be enough of a peace offering; something to mend the widening gulf between him and the rest of the family. 

Bill stares back at her in mute horror. He wasn’t expecting his father to give in. He’d been hoping, actually for the opposite. Now, though, he has to ask Pennywise to dinner. To meet his parents and his brother. 

Shit.

…

The scrutiny is awful. Waiting for Pennywise to turn up – it promised – means that he’s stuck in the living room with his father and brother. Georgie is chattering about his day at school and some of his friends, about photography, about what Bill’s girlfriend is like. He’s making enough noise that it’s almost enough for the uncomfortable silence between Bill and their father to be overlooked. Their father is on his second beer, and he’s sat in his usual spot, staring at Bill with a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

The things he’s thinking make Bill want to scream. He thinks that Pennywise is going to be defective somehow: that Bill is too stupid with his stutter to be able to get a _real_ girl to go out with him, so he’ll be dating someone ugly or slow or _whatever_. He’s wrong. He’s so, so wrong, and Bill wants to shout it at him. Wants to rub it in his face that the love of his life is practically a _god_.

(_Practically?_)

“You did say five, didn’t you Bill?” his mother says, entering from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel. 

Bill nods. He’d had to make sure that Pennywise actually fully understood the idea of five in the afternoon. The concept of time as a linear structure was as alien to Pennywise as the ability to simultaneously exist in every universe is to Bill. There are things Pennywise talks about sometimes, concepts and ideas, that are utterly baffling to him even with a direct line into Pennywise’s thought process. The way they view the world – worlds, even – is too different to be put into words, and so their mental communication relies primarily on visual images or the impressions of sensation. Again, though, the human mind and body are ill-equipped for something of Pennywise’s magnitude.

Apparently, however, Bill described linear time accurately enough, as the doorbell rings at exactly five o’clock. He darts out of his chair before anyone can stop him, races down the hall, throws open the door, and…

Stares.

Pennywise makes a pretty human girl when it wants to.

It’s still visibly Pennywise. It has kept the high cheekbones and full lower lip from its favourite form. It’s still tall – taller than Bill – though no longer toweringly so, and still willow-slender. Its copper hair is longer now, falling in loose curls to its waist, and it’s swapped the clown costume for jeans and a pale grey sweater decorated with a geometric pattern that looks almost festive while also making Bill’s eyes hurt. It takes him a moment to decipher it, but when he does, he laughs softly.

Pennywise has decorated its sweater with a recurring pattern of turtles being dismembered and eaten by spiders.

“Hiya Billy,” it greets, using the same words it always uses. Its voice is the same, but the pitch and sweetness of it is less eerie coming from the mouth of an adolescent girl.

“Hi,” Bill says. He opens the door wider. “Yuh-you look ah-amazing.”

It tilts its head to the side and Bill can feel it brush against his mind, looking for evidence that he prefers this shape to its own favoured one. He doesn’t. Pennywise is Pennywise regardless of shape, and if Bill can love it in the monstrous impossibility of its <strike>not-</strike>spider form or even as the floating deadlights, then it taking the form of an attractive member of his own species is not going to make a difference. He knows that. He also knows that his father’s expectations aren’t going to be met and that makes him happy.

Pennywise blinks slowly. It enters the house, leaving no footprints in the snow outside. For a moment they stand together, frames by the open door, before Bill pulls it into a tight embrace.

“Thuh-ank yuh-you,” he says. “Fuh-for c-c-coming.”

(For being here. For being perfect. For _being_.)

He feels Pennywise’s hands creep up his back, sliding over his spine and his shoulder-blades. One of them curls at the back of his neck, long fingers brushing through the hair at his nape and scratching long nails – formerly claws – against his scalp. The gesture is familiar. Soothing. He presses his face into Pennywise’s neck and inhales the smell of blood and sugar-sweet mould. He can feel his body beginning to respond and he forces himself to pull away before he can embarrass himself in front of his entire family – in front of his mother, who is watching them from the door to the living room.

“Uh,” he says, and it’s meant to become an introduction, but he genuinely doesn’t know where to even start.

“I’m Sharon Denbrough,” his mother says, holding out her hand.

Pennywise studies the outstretched limb with a distant kind of curiosity. Bill can feel the layers upon layers of confusion building in its mind. For all that it is an ancient being of indescribable power, it doesn’t have a complete grasp of human niceties. Humans are food, save for Bill, who is its lover (_mate_). Outstretched hands are something Pennywise usually bites off.

Instead, this time, it reaches out its own hand. Long, with spindly fingers tipped with nails that look like they’ve been painted black. It shakes Bill’s mother’s hand with a sense of bewilderment that – on the surface – looks like nervousness: Pennywise’s ignorance of human customs is, so far, making it look shy.

“Penny Gray,” it says quietly.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Penny,” Bill’s mother says, and she actually means it. “Come in and take your boots off.”

Bill closes the door behind them, briefly letting his head rest against the cold wood. Trepidation has settled hard and heavy in his gut, and the way Pennywise is smiling as it follows his mother deeper into the house is doing nothing to alleviate the feeling.

This is going to be a disaster.

…

When Bill had first mentioned his mother’s idea to Pennywise, he’d had to explain that it was a human tradition – for parents to make sure that their child had chosen a suitable mate. He’d received something of an odd reaction: Pennywise had gone quiet. It had thought of that turtle-thing again – not a parent, but a relative of some kind (_brother, Billy_) – and the idea of introducing Bill to it had provoked a furious hiss, accompanied by red-glowing eyes and a rush of spiked-black chitin along the length of Pennywise’s arms. Its overreaction had brought with it a single, clear thought that had slammed into Bill’s mind hard enough to give him a headache: he is not, under any circumstances, going to meet Pennywise’s brother in return.

(_Maturin will **die** first._)

As it is, Bill wishes that he wasn’t going through this now. That, somehow, he’d found a way to avoid it without ensuring further mockery from his father. His mother is carrying almost all of the conversation, and Pennywise is chatting with her almost convincingly - _almost_, because there’s a decidedly malevolent tilt to its smile that made Georgie go wide-eyed and silent the very moment he laid eyes on it.

(He doesn’t remember. He won’t remember. He will always have the feeling of having escaped something terrible.)  
Bill’s father has moved on to his fourth beer, and there’s a flush building in his cheeks. His thoughts are a constant stream of disbelief - _this is the kid’s girl?_ \- and hate - _useless fucker isn’t even talking to her; can’t fucking talk to her_ \- and other things that make Bill want to stab him in the eye. _Pretty mouth she’s got. Wonder if she knows how to use it yet._

He feels sick. Largely because he knows that Pennywise is picking up on his father’s thoughts as well, and he can just glimpse the deadlights gleaming between its teeth and in the depths of its eyes, feel its temper fraying.

It _hates_ his father. Hates him and plans to eat him – (_destroy him_) – for lashing out at Bill after Halloween. The litany of filth running through his father’s mind isn’t doing him any favours. If anything, it’s making Bill more supportive of whatever brutality Pennywise has planned.

Under the table, he hooks his foot around Pennywise’s ankle. It glances at him mid-word, and some of his nausea and distress must register, because he can feel the answering surge of its possessiveness. The fork it’s holding bends between its fingers and shadows deepen as it stands slowly. His mother and Georgie don’t seem to notice; his mother is still talking about how sweet it is that ‘Penny’ is content to wait until summer for a proper date, and Georgie is deeply invested in his mac & cheese, trying his best to ignore the strange girl who frightens him so much. As Pennywise moves, the shadows in the room lengthen along with its limbs, and a black-clawed hand lands in the middle of the table next to the roast ham as Pennywise leans over his father’s suddenly frozen form.

Bill doesn’t see exactly what happens, but judging by the flickering yellow-orange light that bathes his father’s face, he can guess. 

Pennywise sits back down, leaving his father sitting oddly slumped in his chair. One side of his mouth is drooping, and there’s fear shining in his eyes, piss soaking into the front of his trousers. Bill wraps his hand around Pennywise’s and smiles, leaning in to quickly brush a kiss to its cheek. His father makes a soft gurgling noise, tries to lash out and fails. His beer bottle slips from his fingers to smash onto the floor. The strange shadows vanish in an instant, and with the spell broken, Bill’s mother leaps to her feet, calling her husband’s name and sending Georgie to phone for an ambulance.

With his brother gone out of the room and his mother turned away, Bill catches his father’s eye over her shoulder. He can practically _taste_ his fear. It’s much better than his anger, his lust; everything he found so repulsive earlier has vanished beneath pure terror. Satisfied, Bill grins. 

(_Time to float, Mr Denbrough._)


	2. Outtake - Disagreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1st November: Pennywise and Bill have a minor disagreement and while Pennywise almost develops a conscience, Bill starts to lose his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for lovelyephemeral's prompt of Bill and Pennywise having an arguement. It's not _much_ of an arguement because I suck at writing people fighting, but I hope you like it anyway!
> 
> Set between chapters 3 & 4 of Falling.

Claws skate along the edges of the swelling on his cheek and trace the line through his split lip. Bill hisses at the cold touch, flinching even as he tries to lean into it. Pennywise’s eyes flicker red as blood. 

“Billy,” it snarls, and he winces even though none of its rage is aimed at him. 

“I-uh-I’m okay,” he whispers. 

Down the hall, his parents are still awake. They’re arguing almost silently; a huge difference from his father’s temper this morning. If he stretches out his senses, he can hear their thoughts. _Divorce_ shines through from both of them and, honestly, he wishes that they would. It would be better - for him, for Georgie - if their mother snatched them up and moved them back in with her parents. She won’t. She hates her mother for being right about the man she married and her piano teaching doesn’t make enough to support them on her own. 

His father doesn’t want them at all. He’d give them up gladly, but a wife and two children are a good way to get his mistress not to ask for more from him. 

With them awake and spitting hate at each other only two rooms away, he doesn’t want to draw their attention to him by speaking too loudly. He doesn’t want to risk them asking why he’s talking to himself in the middle of the night, or worse, stumbling on Pennywise. 

(_Could make them float for ya, Billy._)

_No!_

He jerks back, glaring up at Pennywise as best as he can. One of his eyes has swollen shut and he looks less than intimidating - not that he could intimidate Pennywise anyway. He can see himself through Pennywise’s eyes, small and pathetic and beaten; the glow that usually clings to his skin is diminished, and it’s enough to make his own temper flare. 

“Thuh-huh-th-fuck,” he snaps. He looks away, hunching in on himself. _They’re my parents._

(_They hurt you._)

There’s no arguing with that, Bill knows. Not when he’s black and blue and too sore to lie comfortably on his own bed. Pennywise touches the bruise on his cheek again. It’s shockingly gentle - claws that can rend flesh as easily as wet paper don’t so much as sting. That Pennywise, an ancient killer, can avoid causing harm when his own father seeks to deal it out hurts more than the bruises. Even though Bill has always known his father doesn’t care for him. Even though -

_They’re still my parents._ It’s a nonsensical kind of stubbornness and he knows it. But. His mother’s silence today came from her fear of the shadow that Pennywise has cast over Derry. When she’d discovered his empty bed, she’d thought he was gone. Snatched. Dead at the hands of a serial killer. To blame Pennywise for his father’s violence would be wrong, but it’s entirely to blame for his mother’s fear - to point that out, though, would be unfair. Fear is what Pennywise _is_, and just because Bill doesn’t find it frightening, that doesn’t mean he’s in any way normal. 

Pennywise is silent. Its hands slide down his neck and over his shoulders and his ribs, finding tender places beneath his pyjamas. Bill shifts. He watches Pennywise’s face but can’t read its expression. Its thoughts, as well, are too vast and too many for Bill to fully grasp. It seems confused by something, almost hurt. He wraps his fingers around its wrists and draws its hands back up towards his face. 

His lip splits open again as he kisses its claws, smearing droplets of blood over black chitin. 

(_Billy is unhappy._)

Again, he can’t argue with that without seeming like he’s lost his mind. _I don’t want Mom to be hurt,_ he thinks. He pushes the thought towards Pennywise, showing it images of piano lessons and warm embraces; of her tears as she helped him off the floor and up the stairs into a bath. The quiet scolding she’d given him and the words she’s holding back even as she tells his father that he went too far. He shares early morning cups of coffee and his first memories of learning to read. He shares the strange smiles she used to give him before he learned to hide his ability to read minds, and the way she never flinched away from him even though everyone else did. 

_You spared Georgie. He needs her too. She was scared for me, not mad._

He...can’t make excuses for his father. Not anymore. 

(_I have a brother._)

It’s as close to a random statement that he’s ever heard, and Bill blinks in surprise as he realises that Pennywise is trying to relate to him. It’s...comforting, in an odd sort of way. The images Pennywise shows him are not: they’re of the dark shape he’s only ever glimpsed before: a turtle-like being gliding through the dark, stars spewing from its gaping mouth. It’s accompanied by a wave of hatred that’s strong enough to take Bill’s breath away. 

(_Maturin. The **creator**. He vomits creation without care, and resents me for existing._)

_Your parents_

Pennywise tilts its head and gives a very human shrug. The memory it shares is blurred, barely formed. Hatching in the dark, surrounded by the shadows of eggs that would never crack open. Its first feast, devouring its siblings on instinct; Maturin, the only other survivor chipping its way free before Pennywise could reach it. No parents. No creator-beings. Just isolation and _**hunger**_. 

(_One of us will kill the other._) 

The thought comes with such certainty that it makes Bill shudder. He clutches tighter at Pennywise’s wrists, shifts so that their bodies are pressed together. It hurts, but he doesn’t care. He wants -

He needs - 

An extra limb appears, curving out from Pennywise’s back and sliding around his waist, pulling him closer even as it tries to be gentle. It doesn’t want to hurt him. Bill tries not to assign human sentiments to what he feels from Pennywise often, since he knows it wouldn’t be right; it experiences things on a completely different spectrum to himself. But. There’s a fizzing to its thoughts that feels similar to worry; anger simmers beneath it, and a faint thread of something that might be fear. Fear of Bill - that his anger and resentment might lead to him pushing it away - and fear for him. He is small and fragile and too important to lose. 

There’s something else too. Something warmer that Bill doesn’t want to name in case he ends up being disappointed. 

_You promised not to hurt Georgie, and he’ll be hurt if they float._

(_Both of them?_)

That kind of sick-sweet faux-innocence should make his skin crawl. It doesn’t. He actually finds it cute, even as it makes him wonder if there’s something wrong with him. 

The question is accompanied by a nudge at his memories of the morning, foregrounding Georgie instead of his father’s fists and his mother’s cries. He hadn’t realised Georgie had seen the whole thing. Hadn’t realised that he’d been there the moment the first blow landed on Bill’s face, hidden white-faced in a corner. He’d been crying, watching them, and Bill hadn’t noticed. 

And Bill. He can’t make excuses anymore. He sighs, hides his face in Pennywise’s chest. 

_Just Dad, then._

The surge of emotion he receives in response is definitely something he can put a name to: satisfaction and victory and just enough of a hint of smugness that Bill tightens his grasp on Pennywise’s wrists in warning. Not enough to hurt - he doesn’t think he could ever do that - but enough to let Pennywise know that there are still boundaries. 

(_I’ll destroy him for hurting you, Billy._)

_He’s still my father. Don’t tell me how. Don’t tell me what you’re going to do._

He senses Pennywise’s easy agreement and the hand on his back slides lower, rubs soothingly over the base of his spine. He relaxes into it; completely calm for the first time since he left the house on Niebolt Street. 

(_Mourn who he should have been._)

Bill nods.


	3. What Georgie Saw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Georgie sees something that frightens him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lack of update on the main fic this week. RL smacked me with a bat. The chapter is partially done, though, so it should (hopefully) be up some time in the next week. In the meantime, I hope this makes up for it!
> 
> This fills Copperonthetongue's request for Bill and Pennywise getting caught in the act.

He’s not sure what wakes him. He blinks up at his ceiling - disoriented in the way of someone who has been snapped out of a deep slumber. His throat hurts. His ears are ringing. He blinks again and looks over at the clock on his nightstand. Its dial reads 3:30 and he whines instinctively at it. He no longer feels tired. Sore, slightly, especially in his head and throat, but not tired. 

He pushes himself up. The ache in his throat demands soothing. He grimaces as his feet touch the cold floor, and his toes curl instinctively, but he doesn’t jump away or even try to walk quickly. He doesn’t want to make too much noise - doesn’t want to disturb Billy, who’s been acting so weird lately, or his parents, who have been acting even weirder. He creeps slowly instead, as quietly as he can, and only half opens his door to slide into the hall. 

There’s an odd smell in the hallway. He wrinkles his nose, grimacing. It’s a heavy, sickly sort of scent. Like popcorn and something metallic that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The house around him is silent, alien. Georgie feels like an intruder in his own home, and he quickens his steps accordingly. He wishes he hadn’t left his room, but he _needs_ a drink. 

He’s halfway down the stairs when he hears a noise behind him. His skin prickles and he turns to glance over his shoulder. 

At the far end of the hall, Bill’s door is ajar. 

Nothing moves. Georgie strains his ears and hears nothing except the beating of his own heart. He turns to continue when it comes again - a low voice. Not quite a whisper, but someone talking under their breath. Billy?

_Bill stutters,_ he reminds himself. 

But...that wasn’t their father. The pitch was wrong. Not their mother either. _Does Bill talk in his sleep?_

It’s not something he’s noticed before, if he does. His brother is quiet by nature and growing quieter with every passing day. He doesn’t hide, exactly; Bill’s not a coward. He just watches them like they’re distant things, sometimes. 

(And sometimes he gives Georgie things he hasn’t asked for yet, answers questions he hasn’t put into words. He doesn’t do the same for their parents: it worries their mother. Their father...)

He listens, but he can’t catch the words. The low hum of Bill’s voice fades into nothing and Georgie creeps down into the dark of the downstairs. 

(On the bottom step, he thinks he hears another voice. A higher one, pitched somewhere close to a growl. 

_No!_

Fear follows him into the kitchen.)

He drinks his water slowly. He fills his glass a second time and leans against the counter as he sips it slowly. He doesn’t want to go back upstairs. 

The kitchen is free of that alien presence. There’s no threat hanging over him, although he keeps his eyes trained on the bottom of the stairs as if waiting for a shadow to materialise. 

There was something familiar about that second voice. The one he almost didn’t hear and wishes he hadn’t. He doesn’t know _what_ about it is familiar, where he’s heard it before, but he knows - just _knows_ \- that he doesn’t want to ever hear it again. 

He doesn’t want to go back upstairs. 

He lingers until his feet are frozen on the linoleum, and until his eyes are drooping again and his bladder protests all three glasses of water. Then he makes his way back to the bottom of the stairs, peering up into the shadows. He stands and listens until the pressure in his bladder becomes too much to ignore and he darts up them as quickly and quietly as he can, dashing to the bathroom at the end of the hall. 

It’s only when he steps back out into the hallway that he hears something again. The strange smell has grown stronger, mustier; it sticks in the back of his throat and he claps a hand over his mouth to try and block it out. There’s a soft noise from Bill’s room - a faint moan like he’s hurt or something. His door is still open slightly. 

Georgie drifts closer. 

(He doesn’t want to look.)

With his hand still over his mouth, he peers around the door. Bill’s room is dark, darker than the hall, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. His brother is sitting up in bed, little more than a shadow hidden behind the clown straddling his lap. One of the clown’s hands is braced on the wall behind his brother’s head, its fingers long and black and _sharp_. 

He can hear ragged breathing, an odd hissing sort of noise, and something soft and wet and rhythmic as the clown moves and shudders. His mind is screaming, and he _knows_. He knows where he heard that voice before, why it was so familiar. He heard it the day when he first saw it, peering up at him from the drain with his boat caught between its fingertips. He’d wanted to run then, even as he’d knelt and spoken to it. He wants to run now, but his feet won’t move. His legs are trembling and a distant part of his mind thinks it’s a good thing he already peed or he’d be making a mess of his pyjamas. He whines, a hysterical sort of noise, but it catches in his throat, his body instinctively clamping down on anything that might draw its attention. 

_“I’m not supposed to take things from strangers,” he’d said, kneeling in the rain and peering down into the gutter. _

_“Oh,” the clown had replied, and its smile had been <strike>hungry</strike> almost sweet with its sharp teeth and its blue eyes glittering with mischief. “Well, I’m Pennywise. Pennywise the Dancing Clown! And I’m friends with your brother Billy, oh yes I am!”_

(Friends? But they’re - )

He’d forgotten all about it. He’d forgotten telling Billy he could visit his friend in the sewer again; forgotten the cold, damp brush of its fingers as it passed his boat back, the way they felt like the time he and Johnny Peterson had found a dead crow in the woods and Johnny had made him touch it. He remembers now, far too clearly: the fear, the visceral disgust, the way he’d raced home and thrown up after passing its message on to Billy. 

He remembers now and he wishes he didn’t. 

He hears Bill gasp, sees one of his hands clench in the rotting fabric of the clown’s tunic. He hears his brother pant “wait, wait” and watches as the clown shivers in response. 

He doesn’t hear anything else, but he knows that Billy must have realised that he’s standing there even before the clown turns its head to look at him over its shoulder. 

Its eyes aren’t blue. Instead, they’re glowing orange; bright and otherworldly in the dark of Billy’s room. There’s a strange light emanating from its mouth, and it makes its teeth look like fangs. Georgie feels his body seize. His hysterical whine of fear finally escapes in a long, low wheeze as the air is driven from his lungs. 

His legs move without permission, walking him backwards out of the doorway and down the hall and he tries to fight it - he does! - but he can’t. He can’t even though he tries, right up until he’s closing his bedroom door against his will and marching backwards, ever backwards, towards his bed. He’s dropped carelessly onto the mattress, discarded like some kind of doll. He stares up at his ceiling, fear bubbling in his mind; tears are tracking down his face and he can’t -

He can’t -

He blinks. Shifts on his blankets and draws them back over himself. His feet are freezing, and he rubs them together as he snuggles down. He must have thrown them off at some point during the night. His face is wet and his pyjamas are sticking damp with sweat to his back. He grimaces and tries to ignore it, choosing instead to try and get warm again. 

He hates having nightmares.


End file.
